We are happy to share that partner Philippe Campolini (Intellectual Property) and counsels Philippe De Prez (Banking & Digital Finance) and Martin Bassem (Real Estate & Construction) are considered as Next Generation Lawyers in the latest edition of the Legal 500.

Simont Braun, which is the exclusive Belgian member of The Interlex Group, is proud to see this worldwide association of leading law firms ranked as “Elite” network by Chambers & Partners for the third year in a row.

The 2017 summary highlights Interlex’s “highly respected members” and praises that the association abides “by a strict acceptance and quality review policy, placing a strong focus on the personal relationships between member firms”.

Interlex has been ranked in the Elite category since Chambers & Partners began ranking networks.

Simont Braun is the exclusive member of The Interlex Group in Belgium. This association gathers leading law firms from all over the world that cooperate on a non-exclusive basis to provide a complete range of international legal services to their clients.

Simont Braun has again achieved great results in the last edition of Legal 500, which recognizes and ranks the best law firms in more than 100 jurisdictions. We are also delighted to see more than 10 partners recommended:

In evolving to a Single Digital Market, the use of consumer data becomes more and more important for service providers. With regard to financial institutions, exploiting payment data is of particular interest, not only to reduce costs and improve product quality, but also to offer new and innovative financial services and, in general, an increased customer experience. The access to and the control over such data is therefore crucial.

One of the ways by which the EU legislator wants to promote this is by mandating banks to “open up the bank account” to external parties. This is often referred to as the ‘access to account’ rule (‘XS2A’) which is for instance embodied in the revised Directive on payment services in the internal market (“PSD2”).

Also from a consumer’s perspective, Europe wants to further strengthen a person’s control over his personal data and support the free flow of such data. This is one of the goals of the new General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), and in particular the new “right to data portability”.

The GDPR applies from 25 May 2018. In order to bring further clarification for undertakings implementing it, the Working Party 29 (“WP 29”) recently published several guidelines. One concerned the right to data portability.

This article intends to give an overview of the most important points elaborated by WP 29 and, although the scope of this right concerns personal data in general, give particular attention to the portability of bank account information.

SIMONT BRAUN is pleased to announce that Jacques Malherbe has joined its tax department as Of Counsel on the 1st of January 2017 where he will be working next to Lievin De Wulf (Partner) and Martina Bertha (Of Counsel).

Jacques Malherbe has a well-known reputation in the field of tax law that he taught at the Louvain University from 1970 to 2005 and still at the moment in many universities abroad. He is the author of many publications. He advises Belgian and international clients on all aspects of tax law. Next to his advisory work, Jacques Malherbe is also involved in litigation and arbitration in tax and financial matters.

Will banks become the infrastructure of the payment industry?

Introduction

The new Directiveon payment services in the internal market (“PSD2”) was published on 23 December 2015. Member states must transpose PSD2 into their national law before 13 January 2018.Among many other features, PSD2 establishes a regulatory framework for two new players in the world of payment service providers: the “account information service providers” (the “AISPs”) and the “payment initiation service providers” (the “PISPs”). Unlike traditional payment service providers, these new entities do not provide and service payment accounts for their clients. They merely facilitate and improve the way their users can manage their existing accounts provided by banks or other payment service providers. This is why the AISPs and the PISPs are collectively referred to as “third party payment service providers” (“TP-PSPs”).